Viewing report activity
You can view all reports that are generated by traversing the report wizard pages (that is, all reports except for License Usage) on the Report Activity page. You can access this page via Reports > Report Activity. Such reports are generated in the background, where you need not tie up your browser session by waiting for a report to display. Instead, you make selections and send the report generation into the background. The system then stores the result in the database and you can view the report any number of times.
In contrast, a foreground report is the one generated when you click report links on other pages (for instance, from the Dashboard's Quick Report links) or in an email sent to you from a job. Once you click the link, you wait for the browser to display the completed report, which is not stored and lives only while you are viewing it. If it takes too long to generate the report and you decide to go somewhere else with your browser, then the system is still going to generate the report to completion, tying up CPU and database resources for a report you will never see. The foreground report generation is also shown in the Report Activity, and you can abort such unwanted foreground reports to free up resources.
You can perform the following tasks on the Report Activity page:
- View the progress of reports you requested and reports requested by other users and jobs. A progress bar shows you how much work is completed and how much still remains to be done.
- Abort reports you requested or reports requested by other users. You might have started a report you no longer want, or you asked for a report that is too large and is taking too long to generate. You can abort both background and foreground reports.
- View your completed reports.
- View your aborted reports, which display what was generated before it was aborted.
- Download your exported reports.
- Delete your completed and aborted reports and your exported reports.
- Re-generate your completed reports. You can generate a fresh version of an old report using the identical selections you made earlier, without traversing wizard pages.
In-progress reports
When a report is in the process of being generated, the Progress column displays a progress bar, showing how much work has been done and how much remains to be done. The following figure shows an in-progress report.
By default, when the Report Activity page is displayed, it shows the reports you asked the system to generate, both currently in progress and completed.
If you have the system right to View In-Progress Reports Generated By Other Users, the Report Activity page can also show reports in progress requested by other users and by jobs. You can select which reports you see using Show All Reports toggle button. When Show All Reports is toggled on, the Report Activity page includes an additional Originator column to show the user name or the job ID of who requested the report. The following figure shows in-progress reports from different originators.
An in-progress report generation can be aborted when you see the 
abort icon in the Actions column. Use the progress bar to decide whether the report is worth waiting for, given how long it has been running and how much is left to do. Use caution when aborting foreground reports (when a Yes appears in the Foreground column) originated by other users. A foreground report usually indicates the user is waiting for the report to be displayed. If you abort it, the partial report will be displayed.
Stored reports
When you have used the report wizard to request a report, the resulting report is stored in the database and is accessed via the Report Activity page. When the report is ready for viewing, the name of the report in the Report column becomes a clickable link. When you click the link, the report is displayed.
When you export a report that was generated in the background, the generation of the export file is also performed in the background. The resulting file is stored in the database, and the export file appears in the Report Activity page as a clickable link in the Report column. You can download the file as many times as you like.
A stored report contains current data at the time the report is generated. A stored report can thus become stale quickly in a busy system. You can manage your stored reports by deleting them once you are done using them. A system parameter controls automatic purging, to ensure stale reports do not linger too long.
The stored report does not include any associated details (such as Discrepancy Details, Change Details, Difference Details, or compliance traces). When you display a stored report and click links to review details, the details are dynamically generated using current data. The current data might be different from the stored data.
If you have the right to view sensitive data, the stored report, when it contains configuration data (as do the search reports), the stored report contains unmasked configuration data. If you export this stored report and ask to mask sensitive data, the system must regenerate the report in order to mask the configuration data. The regenerated report contains current data and thus might be different from what is displayed.
The following figure shows the Report Activity page with reports in various states.
The Report Activity page displays the following columns:
Column | Description |
|---|---|
Report | What type of report this is, including that the report is exported or exported with all details. The name is clickable when the report can be viewed or when the export file can be downloaded. |
Originator | When in All Reports mode, the user name or job ID of who requested this report be generated. When in My Reports mode, this column is hidden, since all the reports are originated by you. |
Details | Summary information about the report selections, including any annotation that was provided and the filename of an exported report. |
Foreground | Whether this is a foreground or a background report. A Yes indicates that it is a foreground report. |
Requested At | Date/time when the report was requested and when the report generation started. |
Progress | For an in-progress report, displays a progress bar indicating progress towards completing the report generation. Displays Preparing... when the amount of work to be done is still being calculated via database queries. Displays In progress when the work is not something that can be counted or when the work has progressed past the generation stage (as an export does when the actual file is being prepared). For a completed report or export, shows the date/time it was completed and made ready for viewing. For an aborted report, shows the date/time it was aborted and who aborted it. Note that a system shutdown aborts all in-progress reports. |
The Report Activity page has the following menu options:
Menu option | Description |
|---|---|
Delete | Delete one or more selected reports from the database, as indicated by the selected check box in the first column. Click the check box in the header to check or uncheck all the reports in the displayed page. Note that you can select reports for deletion across multiple pages of the list. |
Refresh | Refresh the list. All the displayed information is static, so you must use Refresh to observe updates to the report name and the progress bar. |
Help | Display help for report activity. |
You can perform the following actions on reports in the Report Activity page:
Icon | Action | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Abort | For an in-progress report or export, terminate the generation. If you abort a report generation request, the partially-generated report is stored for viewing. If you abort an export request, the partial export is discarded. |
| Delete | Delete the report from the database. Note that if you do not delete your reports manually, the system purges them automatically after a few days per the Purge Generated Reports After system parameter. |
| Re-generate | Generate a new version of the report, using the exact same selections. The original report remains in the database and a new report is generated using current data. |
